


give you everything i have, teach you everything i know

by screaminghalfpastmidnight



Series: happy endings aren't overrated [4]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Time Travel, godmother!Sara, goes throughout the seasons, season five, season four, season one, season six, season three, season two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22106215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screaminghalfpastmidnight/pseuds/screaminghalfpastmidnight
Summary: Tommy Smoak-Queen was not an idiot. He'd simply planned on getting one of William's teleportation prototypes working so that he could gift it to him for Chrismakkuh and instead, had transported himself and his sister, Lucy, through time instead of space. Back to their twenty-something year old father at the beginning of his vigilante crusade. Apparently, Tommy WAS an idiot.OROlicity's twins from the future accidentally time travel back to 2012, then 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 for months at a time. Oliver has to deal with the fact that he actually has a future and his kids have to do their best to keep all the secrets of that future in tact, which includes not telling him or anyone who their mother is.
Relationships: John Diggle & Felicity Smoak, John Diggle & Oliver Queen, John Diggle & Oliver Queen & Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: happy endings aren't overrated [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576168
Comments: 55
Kudos: 219





	1. Uh-Oh

**Author's Note:**

> Felicity will definitely be introduced in later chapters, I just needed to establish a few things before adding her into the mix.

Tommy Smoak-Queen was not an idiot. Sure, he flunked history and had multiple run-ins with the SCPD on his record but most of them were harmless. A few TPs, some school pranks and only _one_ underage drinking charge but his Aunt Dinah had made it disappear so really - it didn’t matter anymore. However, place a teleportation device prototype in front of him and he’s got this in the bag. Ask him to do the electric on your entire house? Done. No problems.

Chrismakkuh was coming up soon and he pretty much had an idea for everyone in his family. He’d gotten his parents a weekend trip to some romantic cabin bullshit (that gift was kind of for him; he fully planned on getting plastered while they were gone), he’d went halfsies with his dad on a gift for his sister Mia, his dad giving her his original bow and Tommy getting it engraved. Lucy was easy. He liked hanging out with her better than his other siblings, only because they were the same age, so he’d gotten the both of them concert tickets for a band they both listened to. His brother Lucas was an early-stage teenager who really just wanted to move out already, so he’d settled on getting him a really expensive set of headphones to drown the family out (seriously, his bank account had been crying for days) and his youngest sister, Carter was nine, so he’d gotten her the entire Harry Potter book set that she said she’d been meaning to read.

William was the hardest. What do you buy your billionaire older brother who would probably get you the coolest thing ever that you didn’t even know you wanted? Luckily, the transportation device prototype was his, and he’d been struggling to get it to work for _months_ (everyone in the house knew; he swore William just came over to mope about it). Tommy knew that if he got the device working, he’d be crowned King of Chrismukkah all year long. His parents always said it wasn’t a competition, but the kids all knew better. They were raised to be competitive and stand their ground; it was in their blood. 

So, on the day of cousin Donnie’s wedding, he was holed up in the studio, tie barely tied and Lucy hanging over his shoulder as he tinkered with the wires. He knew his parents would be coming to get him soon so that they could all head over to the ceremony, but he couldn’t waste a minute. He had been working on it for two weeks and practically gotten nowhere. As he works, him and Lucy endure a mindless conversation about the upcoming holiday concert they're co-hosting as the device starts to spark.

“Shit.” He mutters under his breath.

“Is that supposed to happen?” He means to answer her but before he can, a bright white light flashes and he feels like he’s falling. He lands with a hard thud, Lucy on top of him. His eyes hurt from the intensity of the light, but he pries them open as Lucy rolls off onto the rough floor, the device a few feet away, smoke coming off the top of it. He glances around him, the two of them clearly aren’t in the studio anymore. He rubs his eyes to make sure he’s seeing right as he turns to Lucy, who’s wiping invisible dust off of her dress.

“Oh my god. Did it actually work? Did I fix it?” He winces as he pulls himself up, straightening out his tux. If it’s creased when they go to the wedding, Will’s going to give him a talking-to about appearances. Lucy stumbles a little when she gets up, her heels clattering on the floor. 

“You tell me, Tommy. Where the hell did you take us?” Lucy places a hand on her neck, rubbing out the tensity and taking a look around for the first time. “Uh, nevermind. I know where we are.”

“Good, because that was a total accident.” Tommy’s tone is lighthearted as he walks around, lifting up a needle off of what seems like a med table to inspect it. 

“ _Tommy_.” She says, capturing his attention. “We’re in the Glades. This is the first ever Team Arrow lair. It’s the basement of Grandpa Robert’s old factory.”

“How did you know that?” It made sense to him. He knew the first lair would probably not be as well equipped as the ones that came after, and he knew Team Arrow had fled quickly once the police had raided it. 

“Jesus, did you skip all of your history classes?” Lucy crosses her arms over her torso, clearly getting anxious. Something felt off.

“Of course I did. What kind of question is that?” In his defense, anything he _needed_ to know he could just get from his parents and Ms. Tarto was a total witch with some weird vendetta against his mom.

“Well if you _did_ go, then you would know that this place is supposed to be empty. The SCPD took in everything as evidence and it hasn’t been used since, so why does this look like it’s still being used as a vigilante-lair-for-beginners?” Lucy’s getting annoyed quickly. The situation isn’t exactly ideal and it’s not adding up. Besides, her mother was going to kick her ass for being late to the first wedding their family’s had in at _least_ five years.

Tommy doesn’t seem phased in the slightest. “So? Maybe some rookie needed a base of operations. This place would come in handy. No one will think to check here.”

“Okay, well if that’s the case, we should get out of here. Whoever it is, I don’t want to get on their nerves. I can’t fight in these heels.” She kicks one foot up a little for effect, the silver glitter shining under the bright lights from above the med table.

“Yes you can.” Tommy seems genuinely confused by her statement, causing her to roll her eyes at him. She shivers a little, too. Why is this place so cold?

“Well, I don’t want to. Can we go?” Her tone is frustrated now, so in order to avoid the storm, Tommy bends down to pick up the device, which has finally stopped smoking, and flicks his wrist towards the staircase, motioning for them to leave.

“Not with that. Let’s just call Uncle John.”

“Alright.” He raises his voice, arms going up in surrender before he swings open the exit door. 

Now this was weird. The top level of the old Queen factory should be a dump. In fact, it was a dump the last time they drove past it. Granted, they don’t travel to the Glades a lot, but still. Now, it was a fully-functioning nightclub. Bar stocked, chairs stacked, floors mopped. Above the front doors is an LED neon light, reading _Verdant._

“Okay, what the fuck? This has not been a bar since before we were born.”

“Nightclub, actually.” She corrects him.

“Is that really important right now?” Tommy narrows his eyes at Lucy, who just seems captivated by the place, her eyes flitting around all over the room, taking it in.

“ _Tommy._ ” She says in the same tone as earlier, the one meant to get him to listen. “Is it even remotely possible that the device - and I know this sounds crazy - maybe transported us to a different earth? Or time… maybe?”

“Um, A: are you nuts? and B: I am _not_ smart enough for that.”

“I think you might be.” He’s about to respond when the front doors open, startling his sister beside him. To his relief, two very familiar men walk towards them.

“Dad! Uncle John! How did you know we’d be here?” As soon as the words come out of his mouth, Lucy groans in disappointment. Their dad (maybe?) takes a step back, tensing, almost raising his arms into fighting position but decides against it, presumably realizing that the people in front of him are children.

Oliver stutters a little, not finding the right words. Thankfully, John speaks for him. “Who the hell are you?” 

Uncle John is more defensive than either of the two of them have ever seen him. Oliver follows his lead, letting him speak but remaining alert, clearly neither of them believe the whole dad/uncle thing. They also look a lot younger. Her dad is less muscley and neither of them have an inch of grey hair or wrinkles. John’s face looks unbelievably different as well, there’s a certain darkness in his eyes that takes her by surprise.

Tommy starts to speak to them, confused but Lucy jumps in, hoping to stop her brother from screwing things up more than he already has. First rule of _supposed_ time travel or world jumping: never tell anyone who you really are. That’s out the window now.

She steps in between the two men and her brother, placing a hand on his chest to push him back before turning to the adults. 

“Okay. Hi.” She puts on her politest smile and tries to force back the panic she feels rising in her throat. “So, I’m Lucy. This is Tommy. Quick question… what year are we in?”

John’s eyebrows raise, practically screaming _bullshit_ at her and she resists the urge to sigh. This _has_ to be time travel. Her Uncle John would never look at her like that. “Uh, you mean to tell me you’re a time traveller.”

“Or world jumper. Either is starting to make sense.” Lucy mentally kicks herself. Chances are, the multiverse isn’t exactly public knowledge yet. “So, I’m guessing this is… well, Verdant’s still here so… 2015?”

“2012.” Diggle answers. Her dad still hasn’t said anything, just glanced between the siblings warily. 

“ _Fuck._ ” Tommy groans, dropping to the floor and putting his face in his hands. “We’re _so_ gonna die here. And if not, we’re one hundred percent going to get _murdered_ when we go back.”

“Will you relax? You’re making this worse.” Lucy crosses her arms again, guarding herself. This may be her dad, but he’s not her dad yet, meaning he could really be anyone. She knows a little about who he was before he got married to mom and had her siblings, and most of it wasn’t great. 

His eyes flit between the two of them again, finally resting on Tommy. “You called me _dad_.”

“Yeah, that’s because we’re your kids.” She turns around to look at Tommy, who’s still resting on the floor. “Which we should never have told them.”

“Okay, now who needs to relax?” Tommy stands up now, annoyed with the entire conversation. Apparently, he _was_ a total idiot and should quit his future career plan while he’s ahead. 

Oliver looks to the kids again. “Tommy. So, you’re named after-”

“Tommy Merlyn, your best friend? Yes.” Tommy runs a hand through his hair, starting to get antsy.

“Okay, hold on.” John raises his hand incredulously. “We don’t _actually_ believe this right? This is crazy.”

Oliver looks like he’s thinking it over in his head, finally settling on a response, face stone cold. “Tell me something no one else would know.”

The two siblings look to each other, thinking of what they could say. Wouldn’t John know everything?

Lucy starts. “Uh… Oliver Queen. It’s 2012, so I’m guessing you just got _rescued_ from Lian Yu. You were shipwrecked there after the Queen’s Gambit went down, which you brought your girlfriend’s sister on… not your best decision.”

Tommy continues for her, knowing she’s approaching the part about their grandfather. “You were pulled onto a raft with your dad and another man and then Grandpa decided to give you your best chance.”

The kids knew about what their grandfather did, but it wasn’t something that was talked about a lot. His suicide wasn’t necessarily something that was off limits because of their dad, but because it had always been scary for the kids when they were growing up. They didn’t like to think about their own father having to watch his father kill himself for his son’s survival. Tommy keeps going. “When you were burying him, you found a book with a bunch of names written in it of people who’d hurt Star City, which led you to becoming what you are now.”

Lucy winced at the _Star City_ comment, knowing that at this moment in time, it’s still _Starling City_. 

Diggle whistles. “That’s pretty good.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m sure you can ask Lucy whatever questions you want but I have to go try and figure out how to get us back. Can I use the secret lair by the way?” Tommy points down as he asks permission, although the question is empty as he’s heading towards the door anyways. 

Lucy finds herself not wanting to be alone with her twenty-something father and starts backing up towards the door. “We should probably make sure he doesn’t blow himself up.”

Both adult men are silent as they follow the teenager down the stairs, only sharing a confused glance. Tommy’s already sitting on a chair at a desk, suit jacket hanging over the back of it as he pokes around at the circle of metal in his hands. Lucy walks over to him, leaning against the desk to give her feet a break from the pain of high heels. 

Both Diggle and Oliver keep their distance from the two, and Diggle has his arms crossed but they seem to believe the two kids, so that’s a good starting point. Oliver shifts awkwardly from the other side of the room, clearly wondering what to say. Again, he’s lucky John’s there, because he speaks for him. “So, that’s the thing that got you here?”

“Yep. Completely accidental, by the way. It’s supposed to transport through space not time.” Tommy doesn’t look up at all, focused on the device in front of him.

“Yeah, we’re sorry.” Lucy tries to sound as genuine as she can, knowing they won’t be able to tell if she’s telling the truth, since they haven’t been there for everyday of her life. _Yet._ “We really don’t want to screw anything up for you. We didn’t mean to disrupt whatever day you were having.”

“No, no. It’s… it’s fine.” Her dad looks flustered, which she’s sure she’s never seen on him before. “So, if I’m your dad then… who’s your mother?”

Tommy’s about to answer but Lucy cuts him off loudly with a _shh._ “Do you _want_ to get erased from existence?”

“Oh, please. Telling them who mom is won’t do anything.” Tommy is acting incredibly nonchalant about their situation and it’s pissing her off.

“Are you an idiot?” Her tone gets louder. “A: we don’t even know if he’s met mom yet and B: we haven’t even been born yet! Do you know how calculated time travel is when you travel to a time before you were born? We have to be conceived at the exact eighth of a second that we were in order to come out the same people, not to mention that they could just not have us at all and I’d rather not fade away to dust before my math test on Monday.”

It winds Oliver when his own daughter from the future talks about being _conceived_. He’s never genuinely had to sit down after a conversation before. However, at least he knows their mother isn’t Laurel, since they don’t know if he’s met their mother yet and Laurel and him have known each other their whole lives. He doesn’t know whether he should be relieved or disappointed. 

“Yeah, okay. You’re right.” Tommy responds, sending what seems like an apologetic look to Oliver.

“Good. From now on, we’re Tommy and Lucy _Queen_. Mom doesn’t exist and Mom’s entire side of the family doesn’t exist. Just watch what you say.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” He says sarcastically.

Oliver fiddles with his thumbs, feeling genuinely anxious for the first time in years. “Okay, so how long is it going to take to get you back?”

“Oh, this’ll probably take hours. I don’t even know how we did it the first time.” Tommy sighs, the question irritating him. He’s going to need a screwdriver.

Lucy lets out a whine and winces a little bit, capturing all of Oliver’s attention, who checks her over from afar. He stops himself from letting out a sigh of relief when she tells them that she just _has_ to get out of those shoes. “Do you have any clothes here?”

“Uh, a few but they’d probably be too big on you. I guess I could steal you some clothes from Thea.” Thinking about bringing her back to the mansion only increases Oliver’s anxiety, but he also knows that she can’t walk around in the fancy attire she’s currently sporting. “Dig, you mind staying with…” 

Oliver doesn’t even have to finish his sentence. Diggle’s already nodding at him, moving to sit in the seat next to Tommy. Oliver motions for Lucy to follow him and she does, only a teeny bit too eager to come home with him. “Why are you dressed like that, anyway?”

“We were supposed to be going to a wedding. Hopefully, we haven’t missed it.”

The drive is quiet, neither of the two of them talking. Oliver’s still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he has not one, but two kids and they’re both here and somehow he’s meant to act fatherly. He thinks she understands how weird this must be for him because she seems comfortable enough to sit in silence, gazing out the window at Starling. 

He doesn’t expect his mother to be home. He should have; on any other day he _would_ have, but he was so distracted that he didn’t think about it. He’s a little stunned when she calls them in from the living room and he has no idea what to say. He knows that his mother will insinuate an… _intimate_ relationship between the two and he’d rather not scar his daughter when he’s known her for all of five minutes. The word _daughter_ still freaks him out.

Lucy handles it better than he does. Oliver’s never been the best at coming up with excuses so she jumps in right away, making up some story about being John’s adopted niece and John having some emergency so Oliver was stuck babysitting. It prevents Moira from making any assumptions about the two, which Oliver’s grateful for. Soon enough, Moira’s offering for the three of them to have lunch and she tasks Oliver with stealing clothes from Thea so that Lucy doesn’t get her fancy clothes dirty. He takes the time alone in his sister’s room to decompose and try and make sense of the situation.

He has kids. Two, at least. Lucy and Tommy. Tommy was named after Tommy Merlyn. They can’t tell him who their mother is, but it’s definitely not Laurel. They were supposed to be going to a wedding. They screwed around with a teleportation device and accidentally landed themselves in the past. John is their uncle. He’s their father. 

He has to steady himself against a wall. He always figured he’d die as the hood. He never imagined he’d have any type of future, let alone a _happy_ one. One where he brings _children_ into the world. He assumes Starling City must be a hell of a lot better in the future, because he’d never bring kids into a city like this. This is also assuming that he planned to have them, and that he’s still… _with_ their mother. For all he knows, he could’ve just been particularly uncareful with someone he was just sleeping with and they decided to co-parent. 

There’s endless possibilities, leading to an endless amount of questions. Was he still The Hood? Did he decide to settle down? Was he in love? Were they his only children? It makes his head spin so much that he feels nauseous. Thinking about it was only going to make it worse and he also didn’t want to jeopardize his children even _having_ a future so he decides to just grab jeans and a tank top for Lucy and be done with it.

  
  


When he arrives in the dining room, Lucy’s sitting with his mother and Thea, all three Queens laughing about something as Raisa sets out cookies. “Hey, Speedy.”

Thea looks up at him and grins, happier than he’s seen her in a while. “You didn’t tell me your bodyguard had a niece the same age as me! You’d think since you’ve been telling me to get better friends, you would’ve introduced us by now.”

Lucy flashes him a knowing smile that he can’t help but mirror. “Well, you know her now.”

Lucy laughs at his comment, making his insides warm. He feels an unexplainable sense of achievement at making his future daughter laugh. She stands from her chair and takes the clothes from his hands, thanking him happily before practically skipping away to change. He takes her seat and grabs a cookie himself, anxiously waiting for her to return so that they can leave.

“I didn’t realize you and Mr. Diggle were that close.” His mother states, intrigued. “I certainly didn’t realize it was enough that you would be on babysitting duty.”

“We spend all day together, Mother. He might as well be family.” It’s not exactly a lie, but they’ve never gotten to the point where they’ve voiced how they feel about one another. John is family in the future, and he may as well be family now.

“I for one, never pictured you as the Uncle-type, Ollie.” Thea chuckles, her tone teasing. 

Oliver leans back in his chair, trying his best to relax. His instinct is to not leave Lucy or Tommy alone for even two seconds, and it scares him. “People change, Speedy.”

“Like I just did.” Lucy enters the room, her ever-present smile gracing her lips. “Thanks for the clothes, Thea.”

“Anytime! Assuming Ollie will bring you around again, that is.” Thea looks to Oliver, expecting him to answer.

“Yes, but for now, we should really be going. Got to see your brother, right Lucy?” The look in his eyes leaves no room for arguing and tells her that he’d rather be anywhere but his family home. It makes her a little sad, but she starts to say her goodbyes anyway, for his sake. 

“Yes. Thanks for the cookies, Queens. I’m sure I’ll be back.” He’s leading her out the front door before any of them can offer much of a goodbye in return. He lets out a loud sigh of relief when they step outside the mansion and start walking to the car. Lucy practically squeals beside him, grin even more prominent. “I’m the same age as Auntie Thea! This is officially the weirdest day of my seventeen years on this earth.”

He unlocks the car and swings the passenger door open for her as he speaks. “You didn’t tell her anything, did you?”

She stops before she gets in, looking at him. “You do not have a lot of faith in the way you raised me.”

He just shuts the door behind her and gets into the driver’s side. She’s right. Although, it makes sense that he’d question his abilities to raise not only one human being, but two. He barely knows how to take care of himself, before and after Lian Yu. Not to mention, he’s definitely not the best example of a model citizen. How was he supposed to raise his children to be good when all he had was darkness?

He shakes his head a little, clearing the thought. “So you and… _Auntie Thea_. You’re close, then?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s probably my favourite aunt.” She puts a hand on his arm, and he tenses, before forcing himself to relax. He doesn’t want his daughter thinking he’s not comfortable with her. She doesn’t seem to notice either way, just continues on with a serious look on her face. “Don’t tell Aunt Lyla that. Actually, you don’t even know Lyla yet, so it doesn’t really matter.”

His brain is frazzled. “I thought you weren’t supposed to tell me about the future.”

“Well, no. I can still tell you things, just not… life-altering things. You know like, my mom, or deaths in the family… things that could potentially change the course of action you or anyone else takes.”

“Because if you did, you and Tommy would…” She cuts him off.

“Poof out of existence? Yeah, pretty much.” She doesn’t seem scared at all, which only worries him more. Not only does he have to live up to the expectation she has of him as her father, but he has to make sure he doesn’t do the wrong thing and _kill_ her. “Well, Tommy would. I’d probably still exist but just never know you or die in the future from something else.”

This confuses him more. “Why is that?”

She leans against the headrest and looks at him, eyes wide with a lazy smile on her face. She seems to genuinely enjoy talking to him, so he must not be doing that bad. “Well, I’m not technically yours by DNA, but you’ve raised me since I was a baby. That’s why Tommy and I are so close in age but not twins.” 

Great. Not only did he _have_ kids, but he _adopted_ them. The future was much different than he expected. What made him think he could raise children?

“Look, let’s make a deal. You ask me whatever you want and I’ll try and answer as much as I can while being _very_ careful of the rules of time travel. Deal?” He doesn’t want to risk her making the mistake of saying the wrong thing but she’s looking up at him with so much excitement and he can’t say no.

“Okay… tell me about you and Tommy. Are you two close?”

“You could say that. He’s a pain in my ass but I’m probably the closest to him out of all of our siblings. It’s probably because of us being the same age.” 

“How many kids do I have?” Anxiety spikes again. This entire situation might be scarier than the island.

“Six.” He almost chokes. “The youngest three are adopted and the oldest three are biological.”

“I guess that means you and Tommy are in the middle.” He does his best to engage in the conversation but he really just wants to make it back to the foundry and sit down for once.

“Yep. Will is your oldest son and Mia’s your oldest daughter. Then it’s Tommy and all of them are biological. Then there’s me, Lucas who’s your youngest son, and then the absolute youngest is your daughter, Carter. We’re all adopted.”

“Fuck.” He doesn’t mean to swear and that’s definitely got to be in the parenting rule book, but Lucy breaks out into giggles, making him forget about his mistake.

“This might be a _little_ easier if you ask simpler questions. All of this parenting information must be freaking you out. It’s almost as if you… don’t want kids?” She knows him pretty well, he’ll give her that.

“No, no. I’m sure when me and your mom had you guys, we were all in. I just… right now, it doesn’t really seem like an option.” He doesn’t want her to think that he literally doesn’t _want_ her. Whether or not he’s ready for kids right now doesn’t mean he should screw up his kids’ relationships with future-him. 

“Because of The Hood.” 

“Yeah, how much do you know about that?”

“Well, you don’t really lie to us… so any questions I’ve asked, you’ve answered honestly. I know about the list, obviously and I know you’re doing it to right your father’s wrongs. Not to mention, you were planning on doing it alone until Uncle John got dosed with some drug… I think? Or was he shot? I can never remember.”

“Wow. I figured I’d keep you in the dark about some of that stuff. I mean, that’s scary shi- uh, stuff for a kid to know.” The idea of his children knowing the scarring details of his past made his throat close. They should never have to carry the burdens he has.

“Yeah, well… you tried the whole lying-to-protect-my-kid thing with Will and it got really ugly, fast. I guess after that you realized it only made things worse and you and mom swore that you wouldn’t lie to the rest of your kids. I mean, it’s not like you’re telling nine-year-old Carter about all of your torture but when she turns fourteen, the floor will be open to any and all questions she wants to ask you guys.”

“I have to say, that does not sound like me.”

She laughs, her nose scrunching a little as she looks at him and for the first time, he sees a bit of himself in her face. Not in her physicality but in the way she’s laughing, the light in her eyes actually reminds him of when he and Tommy were her age, cracking jokes in the backseat of the Porsche that Malcolm had gotten his son. “You haven’t learned that lesson yet, so it makes sense. You’ll get there, you still have a lot to get through before you become the man I know.”

That one little statement puts his mind at ease. At least she understands that he has no idea how to do this and that he’ll probably screw it up. He gets a strange feeling of pride at the young woman. He wants to tell her that, but instead he goes with “You must get your smarts from whoever your mom is.”

“Actually, she says I’m more like you.” There she goes again, making his heart smile. He doesn’t think he’s felt this light since before Lian Yu. 

When they reach Verdant, Lucy strides down the stairs with glee, strutting into the lair as if she’s been there a million times. Tommy looks up from the device once to see who it was, and then his attention is immediately placed back on the sparking sphere. Diggle sits on the med table, watching him intently, smiling as he notices his friend and future niece walk into the room.

“Looking good.” Tommy says, but his face is blank.

“I always look good.” That brings a smile out of him, especially as she plops onto the desk, a little too close to the machine for Oliver’s liking but before he can say anything, Tommy shoves her over a little so that the sparks aren’t that close. Maybe he did raise them well.

“How was the Queen family home? Did you steal any heirlooms?” His joke actually makes Oliver chuckle, but it disappears as Diggle looks at him in surprise. 

“No but I saw Auntie Thea.” Her smile dissipates as she says the next part. “And Grandma Moira.”

That gets Tommy to stop what he’s doing and look up at her, both of them sharing matching expressions that neither of the two older men can read. “Yeah? Was she any different than we know her?”

Oliver can tell the question has a double meaning, he just doesn’t know what and asking doesn’t seem to be a good idea either. 

“Hard to tell.” Tommy turns back to the device after receiving her answer, prodding away at it with a screwdriver. “Have you been working on this the whole time?”

“Yup.”

“Well, I don’t know about you but I’m starving.” She looks between John and Oliver. “ _And_ I think Moody and Broody over here could use a nice lunch out. What are we saying?”

The two older men nod at her as Tommy replies, “You guys go.”

“Oh, come on!” Lucy whines, sending him her best pout. “You need a break anyways.”

“ _No_ , I don’t.” His tone changes, suddenly very annoyed with her. It reminds Oliver of when Thea would beg him to play with her instead of going out with Tommy and Laurel back in high school. “Unlike you, I don’t really feel like having _fun_ right now.”

John sends him a look, presumably telling him to whip out his non-existent dad skills as Lucy scoffs. “What does that mean?”

“Doesn’t matter. Go.” 

“ _No_. You said the words, you’re going to tell me what they mean.” Lucy stands up and crosses her arms at him. It seems like she’s got this handled by herself. “What is your problem?”

“Maybe, the fact that I am trying to get us home and you are going out there and risking killing the both of us.”

“That’s bullshit, Tommy! You just don’t want to go to lunch with dad because you’re pissed at him.” Lucy’s voice is raised and Oliver’s anxiety grows. How is he supposed to diffuse a fight between siblings who are also his kids? When him and Thea got angry with each other, sometimes they wouldn’t talk for days. 

“No, I’m pissed at _you_ because you’re being reckless.”

Lucy huffs in annoyance. “You’re the one that got us stuck here, asshole! You know, when you’re done taking your problems out on me, then we can talk. Until then, pretend you don’t know me.” 

She practically runs up the stairs, leaving Oliver worried about which kid to go to. He’s had pretty good luck with Lucy so far, and he is a little hungry, so with one glance at Dig, they’re both heading up the stairs as he shouts, “We’ll be back.”

When they get outside, she’s leaning against the car, arms crossed and face twisted into a frown. Oliver stops right in front of her as Dig gets into the driver’s seat, starting the car. “Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” The statement is sarcastic but there’s no malice in her tone, which he’s grateful for.

“No, but I figured I’d ask.” He motions to the car by tilting his head. “Come on.”  
  


Once they’re both in the car, Dig speaks. “Look, I wouldn’t read too much into it, Lucy. He told me in there that he’s worried he won’t be able to get you two back for a while and the longer you stay, the more dangerous it is.”

“Yeah, I know that’s part of why he’s stressed but that’s not why he wouldn’t come to lunch.” This captures Oliver’s attention, making him recall the fight he’d just witnessed.

“You said he was angry with me. Why?”

She sighs before answering, as if it pains her to tell him. “Look, you and Tommy have a… _complicated_ relationship. You’re too alike, so you butt heads a lot. That and you’ve been having the same fight for two years. You were both pissed at each other before we got stuck here.”

Her explanation hurts him. Things had been going so well with Lucy that he’d figured he had a good relationship with all of his kids. The fact that the one named after his best friend currently hated him made his stomach churn; maybe lunch wasn’t a good idea. “What were we angry about?”

“Well, it’s always the same fight. Tommy partied too hard, you got upset and told him he was better than that. Tommy got pissed at you and said you were being a hypocrite because all you used to do was party.” For the first time, he might actually agree with his future self. It wasn’t that he regretted the things he’d done for his own sake, but he wished he’d had more compassion and a better attitude, specifically towards the women in his life. He hoped to whatever God was out there that Tommy didn’t turn out like him in that regard.

Lucy goes on. “It’s just that… Tommy wants you to let him make his own mistakes and can’t see that you just want to shield him from the consequences that might hurt him, even if theoretically he’d learn from them because you want him to be the best version of himself. Future-You can’t see that when you get on at him for the partying it makes him feel like you’re trying to find anything to scrutinize and that you have this higher expectation of him than everyone else. It’s complicated.”

“Yeah, to say the least.” Dig adds, letting out a breath. 

Lucy sighs loudly, more out of sadness than annoyance. “Which is why I thought lunch would be a good idea. I know he’s going to work himself too hard to try and get us home and I figured it would help us in the future if he gave This-You a chance. I don’t know, I thought maybe he’d see more eye-to-eye with the less-fatherly part of you.”

He takes in a deep breath at her statement. It was a good plan, even if it had failed miserably. He could only hope that Tommy would take his anger out on him and not Lucy, he’d had enough experience with misplaced blame to know that it almost never worked out for the better. He’s about to change the subject, but she beats him to the punch. “Don’t worry about it, though. Tommy will snap out of it and everything will be fine. Until then, I’m excited for this lunch. I want to see if Big Belly tastes the same now as in the future.”

That sparks a laugh out of the two men, the air feeling light again. It seemed his daughter had a talent for that. They spend two hours at Big Belly, which Lucy confirms, does taste the exact same as in the future. Eventually, there’s a ping on Diggle’s phone about some bank robbery the police can’t get a handle on and Oliver’s heart practically stops at the thought of leaving her alone in a Starling City she doesn’t know. She reassures him, tells him to _do his thing_ and he has to drag himself away from her.

She walks the streets of the city for an hour after that, before the events of the day catch up to her. She’s been up for longer than she should’ve been, considering when they’d left 2040, it was 1pm and they arrived here 9:30am. Not to mention, she felt like she’d experienced an adrenaline rush from all of the excitement. She stumbles down the stairs to the foundry, groaning in distaste when she realizes her brother is exactly where they’d left him, still hitting the stupid device.

“Come to lecture me again?”

She scoffs tiredly, taking off her jacket. “Whatever you need.”

Her lack of spunk surprises him. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped earlier. I didn’t mean it.”

“Well, I’d rather you snap at me than Dad, so I can take it.” She rubs her eyes, wanting nothing more than a soft bed.

“I’m not going to snap at Dad, okay? But I can’t help how I feel about what happened…”

She hesitates for a moment, trying to figure out the best course of action before ultimately deciding to walk over to him, sitting on the desk and crossing her arms. “Yeah, but you’re mad at him for a fight you have twenty-five years in the future! He’s not our dad, not yet. He’s an entirely different person than the one we know.”

“I know…” Tommy’s tone is guilty, making her soften. 

“Dad’s scared, I can see it. He has no idea how to do this. But he’s _trying_ , Tommy. _So hard_ . I’m begging you to _please_ be nice to him. Meet him halfway. Some way or another, you’re going to have to figure out how to differentiate this version of him from the one we know.”

Tommy just nods in understanding. She’s so exhausted that she doesn’t really care for a response from him. She makes some comment about there needing to be a couch in the foundry and Tommy suggests she naps in one of the booths in the club. She leaves him with a pat on the back and as soon as her body slumps into the velvet cushioning, she’s out like a light.


	2. Two Tommy's, One Felicity and A Bloody Backseat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the kids meet their mom, their uncle tommy and the Queen son decides to change a little something while he's here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!! Yay!! thanks for all the love on the first chapter and I apologize for the hiatus but the finale threw me for a friggin' loop. I hope y'all will enjoy the second chapter!
> 
> Things To Note:  
> \- everything is taking place on Earth Prime, where Tommy is alive and many many things have changed due to a series of events during crisis that I've changed from canon. (you will find out what they are later in this story, with the appearance of team flash <3)  
> \- spoiler alert: Oliver's not dead, hence the six children.

When Oliver returns to Verdant after successfully taking down the bank robbers, his heart swells at the sight of Lucy, squished uncomfortably on the couch, completely out of it. He makes a mental note to grab her a blanket when he goes downstairs. Tommy’s sitting on the floor now, back against the wall, head in his hands. The sight worries Oliver, but he doesn’t really know what to say. He wants to better things with Tommy, so that maybe Future-Him would go a little bit easier on the ass-kicking, but he’s not sure Tommy even _wants_ to make things better between them. 

He makes sure to step loudly, so that he can let his son know he’s there without having to speak. Tommy lifts his head up and rubs his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping, just brooding; something his mother always said he gets from his father. Oliver drops his jacket over the back of a chair, smiling when Tommy says hello.

“Hey. Is Lucy okay? I saw her sleeping up there.” Tommy tries to ignore the stab in his gut when his dad asks about Lucy and not him. 

“Yeah. There’s a time difference because we showed up here earlier than we did when we left. She’ll be fine. Just tired.”

Oliver nods in understanding as he looks around for a blanket. Tommy watches him closely, thinking about what Lucy said to him. _She’s right._ He’s not their dad, not really. This version of him might actually be more fun to hang around than the one they know. Not to mention, this spontaneous trip of theirs was going to go by painfully slow if he was making jabs at him the whole time, pissed out of his mind. Now, Tommy’s never been that good at letting things go, especially when it comes to the older Queen, but he remembers Lucy asking him to just _try_.

“Listen, Dad.” He notices Oliver’s breath catch at the word, which only encourages him to say what he has to say. “I’m sorry about earlier. The way I reacted was out of line and you raised me better than that. I should’ve just gone to lunch.”

Oliver sighs in relief, a tiny bit of pride tugging at his heart. _You raised me better than that._ Lucy had said things along these lines all day and now with Tommy joining in, it seems that they have respect for the way Future-Him raised them, which gives him a little bit of hope. At least his son is better at apologizing than he is. 

“Tommy, you don’t need to apologize. Lucy told me that we’re not getting along in the future and I don’t expect that to go away for you.”

“That doesn’t make snapping at everyone right.” Oliver stops himself from smiling. His son may only be seventeen, but his maturity stuns him. “Look, you and I will figure it out in the future. But I’m here now, so there’s really no point in holding onto a fight that hasn’t technically happened yet.”

Oliver nods softly, unsure of what to say as Diggle climbs down the stairs, bag of Big Belly in hand. “Hey, I figured you’d need a break from trying to figure out your weird future-tech. How’s that coming, anyway?” Diggle asks, dropping the bag onto one of the chairs and taking his jacket off.

Tommy looks like the question itself exhausts him. “Not well. I’m sure I _can_ fix it, it’s just that the computers here are so slow. I’m thinking I’m gonna have to get to coding but even just _looking_ at the software annoys the hell out of me.” Tommy groans, pointing towards the sorry excuse for a computer setup they’ve got going on. 

Oliver frowns, thinking. “I might know someone who could help you figure it out. She doesn’t ask too many questions either.”

“No. No, no.” Tommy responds immediately, shaking his head. “I know exactly who you’re thinking of, Dad. I can’t meet her yet. There’s still a specific series of events that has to occur before I can be in the same room as Felicity.”

“Wait, you know her?” Tommy’s eyes widen at his father’s question and shakes his head vigorously.

“What did I say about questions?” He sighs, grabbing the bag of food and making his way towards the stairs. “Thank you for the food, Uncle John. I’m going to go eat this and since there’s no way in hell I’m getting us back to our time tonight, I’m going to go join my sister in bed.” He stops in his tracks, squishing his face up in disgust. “Uh, I did not mean it like that. I’m blaming my lack of brain-to-mouth on exhaustion and time travel. Goodnight.”

He only gets a few fries in his mouth before he decides that sleep is what he needs most and lies down next to his sister in the booth closest to the basement door. He’s seconds away from falling asleep when Oliver opens the basement door, shutting it tightly behind him and walking through the club. “Where are you going?” Tommy calls out, a lot quieter than he expected, but his dad hears him fine.

“Uh, I’m meeting Felicity. She said she has something to tell me.”

Tommy snorts, shifting to snuggle into the couch and mumbles, “Good luck.”

\---

He surprisingly wakes up before Lucy, though he feels like they both slept for days. He shakes her a little, reaching into the take out and popping a fry into his mouth, only to cringe at the taste. Big Belly is not to be eaten cold. Lucy groans, rubbing her eyes. “What?” She moans.

“Come on. We’ve slept long enough. We can’t stay here forever.”

“I know, I know.” She says, getting up, placing her hands on her hips and imitating his voice. “ _The longer we stay here, the more dangerous it is. We could be erased out of existence._ Whatever, Tommy. Let’s just get a move on.”

Tommy knits his eyebrows together and raises to fingers, making a hiss sound so that they resemble a snake’s fangs. Lucy sighs, reasoning that she just woke up as they make their way downstairs, only to be met with their father lying unconscious on the table with Uncle John and _their mother_ trying to suture his wound. 

“Holy shit.” Tommy mumbles in awe, not only at the fact that his father is literally lying hurt a few feet away from them, but in awe of his mother, who somehow looks exactly the same yet entirely different at this age. His sister stays lost in the daze of seeing their younger mother longer than he does, only snapping out of it when she notices him try to go to their dad to help him no. 

“Tommy we can’t interfere. No matter how much we want to.” Lucy’s sure this is what her Uncle Barry was talking about whenever he mentioned Flashpoint or the few other times he’s time travelled and saw the people he loves hurt, knowing you can stop it, but having to make the choice not to for the sake of the greater good.

“I can’t watch this.” Tommy practically whispers, not being able to take his eyes off of his dad’s wound.

“Hey,” Uncle John catches their attention. “It’s okay. We got this. You guys get out of here.” He nods at them comfortingly, in a similar way that his future self typically would and Lucy grabs her brother’s hand, practically dragging him back upstairs, shutting the door behind them. Tommy leans against it for a second, eyes falling close as he focuses on his breathing. He then pushes himself off the door and walks straight to the bar, muttering something about needing a drink.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Tommy doesn’t listen to her, only pours himself a glass of whiskey and looks at her pointedly.

“You saying you don’t want any?”

Lucy frowns, bottom lip sticking out a bit before sighing. “Champagne, please.”

Tommy smirks, pouring her a glass before downing most of his own drink in the one go. “So, where are we in the timeline? Dad said he was going to see Mom before we fell asleep yesterday. Do you think she gave him the book?”

“That’s what I’d guess. It must be Grandma Moira that just shot him. I remember Will saying something about it. About how people were skeptical to believe it was really Dad since he supposedly attacked Grandma.”

Tommy traces his finger around the top of his glass, leaning across the bar. “We never got the chance to talk about her when you came back yesterday. What was she like?”

“Honestly? Nice… and welcoming. I sort of expected her to be cold and distant but I mean, the undertaking hasn’t happened yet and I think her and Walter are still together. She just felt like Grandma.” Lucy looks sort of wistful thinking about it. It’s common to think about your parents in their younger years but she’d never once thought about what Grandma would be like _before_ she was a grandma.

Tommy hums, finishing the rest of his glass. “Well, we should keep our distance. It’s gonna be hard enough now that Mom’s here. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from calling Moira _Grandma_ . I mean that’s just, _foreign_.”

Lucy scoffs, shaking her head at him. “I think we’ve got bigger problems, brother of mine. Aunt Laurel’s still alive. The _Earth-One_ Laurel. I don’t know if I’ll be able to even look at her without warning her of what’s coming.”

“True.” Tommy nods. “But, I don’t know, Luce. We never knew Aunt Laurel. All we have are stories. Even Will only met her a few times. If we can get past the part of us that wants to protect her, maybe this is our chance to get something real from her. It’s probably our only chance, to be honest.”

Lucy sighs, spinning around on her stool. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that a lot. As scary as this all is, we do have an opportunity here. I just don’t want to risk anything. The last thing we need is to make someone’s life worse just because we couldn’t help ourselves from spilling a couple secrets. Not to mention, the Legends don’t exist yet which means we can’t call Sara.”

“And I’m guessing neither of us brought an Archer or a Gideon?” He laughs once Lucy shakes her head. “Well, that’s just great. I’m pretty sure right about now Eobard Thawne is posing as Earth-One Harrison Wells and we’re still about two years out from the particle accelerator explosion so it’s not like we can show up on Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris’ doorstep, now can we?”

Lucy shakes her head, exasperated. “Hell to the no. We’ve got enough trouble trying not to ruin the lives of Team Arrow, so let’s not screw up Team Flash before Team Flash even starts.”

He grins at her, chuckling as he thinks about it all. Who their parents were before they even existed. How Uncle Barry is probably still pining over Aunt Iris like a little schoolboy. How Ronnie is still alive. And Professor Stein. They’d grown up on stories of fallen heroes and vigilante crusades and unexpected love stories (which seem to have the common theme of _pining_ , Tommy concurs). Being in a time before any of these things happened is a type of headache he’s never experienced before.

“It’s crazy isn’t it?” He asks. “They have no idea what’s about to happen. I mean, they all barely know each other but… even in as little as a year, everything will be different.”

“Well, hopefully we’re not here to see it.” Lucy responds, clinking their glasses together in a cheers just as the lock on the main doors of Verdant twists, and in steps Tommy’s older namesake, all brown hair and gold wristwatch.

“Who the hell are you?” Their uncle asks when he gets close enough, setting down the small box he was carrying on the counter.

Lucy answers quickly, given her brother’s recent track record with first meetings of their family’s younger selves. “We’re John Diggle’s godkids. Oliver said we could wait here until him and Uncle John come back from… wherever they went.”

Their uncle raises an eyebrow, eyeing the bottle of whiskey. “He say you could drink our liquor too?”

Her brother smacks his lips together, shrugging. “We kinda figured that was included in the offer.”

Tommy lets out a laugh, putting the bottles back on the shelf where they belong. “Well, you guys are lucky it’s just me that’s catching you. I used to steal my parents’ alcohol all the time. I won’t tell. But, you guys gotta hide yourselves once we open. I can’t have my club getting shutdown because I let two underage kids inside.”

Lucy frowns, confused and rests her head on her hands, looking up at her uncle. “How’d you know we were underage?”

He laughs again, shaking his head as if they remind him of someone (probably his younger self, Lucy thinks). “Uh, the deer-in-headlights look that one gave me when I saw the bottle of Jack Daniels in his hands.” He points to Tommy, who bites his lip and looks down, trying not to laugh at the fact that the deer-in-headlights look was actually from seeing his uncle in the past. “I’m Oliver’s best friend, Tommy.”

“I’m Lucy and this is also Tommy.” Their uncle smiles, moving around the bar to take down the other bar stools that are sitting on top of it.

“Huh. I’ve always wanted to meet another Tommy. Anyways, since you guys are already stuck here waiting, do you want to help me set these tables up?” 

They spend the next three hours up in Verdant, making good on their promise to Tommy to keep to the shadows when the club actually opens up, mostly people-watching from the office until they see Diggle waving them down from the basement door. “Please tell me you didn’t tell Felicity that we’re Oliver’s kids.” Tommy asks as they’re walking down the stairs.

“No, I told her you’re my godchildren so I guess that’s the story we’re going with now.” He responds, leading the group.

“That’s what I told Uncle Tommy so we’re running with it.” Lucy says, just as they reach the bottom. Oliver and Felicity are standing quite far apart, talking quietly amongst themselves. “You alright?” Lucy calls out to her dad, who just nods, shifting awkwardly on his feet and holding a blanket over his shoulders.

“Tommy, you said you needed tech help, right?” Oliver asks, and his son nods quickly, striding right over to Felicity and introducing himself as Oliver makes his way over to Lucy, speaking quietly so that the others don’t hear. “Hey. So, I’m sorry you guys had to see that.”

He goes to continue but Lucy cuts him off, whispering. “Dad, it’s okay. You didn’t scare us or anything. It’s just hard for Tommy and I to see you like that and _not_ help. We don’t really wanna risk the timeline right now. That’s why we left. Besides, Uncle Tommy let us have some of the alcohol upstairs. He doesn’t change.”

Oliver lets out a breathy laugh at that, nodding in understanding, grateful he didn’t scar his own kids. Lucy angles her head towards the rest of the group to get him to follow her and laughs when she hears Felicity’s shocked voice, clearly traumatized by how terrible Tommy is with computers. Lucy and Dig spend most of the night playing Go Fish as Oliver sleeps off his injury and Tommy works tirelessly on the device, Felicity going home not long after teaching him the basics of a 2012 computer.

Lucy’s just picking up another card when her brother lets out a loud yelp, jumping up in his seat with the device in hand. “Yes! I think I did it, you guys.” He looks towards the other two, grinning widely, clearly very proud of himself but also a little relieved. Lucy looks up at her Uncle John and finds herself getting a little sad. Not only because they haven’t finished their game, but because the Uncle John in her time is almost nothing like the one in this year. She likes them both, though. 

“I guess this is goodbye, then. But I’ll have you know, when I get back to our time, I am _so_ gonna challenge you to a game of Go Fish _and_ I’m gonna win.” Lucy tells him and he laughs, shaking his head at her.

“I look forward to it.” He looks to the both of them now. “You know, as weird as this time travel thing is, I’m actually gonna miss having you two here. I’m guessing it’s gonna be a while before I see you again.”

“But you will.” Tommy says. “That’s the important part.” He moves into hug his uncle and then tells them he’s going to get Oliver as Lucy hugs Diggle goodbye. He’s surprised to see his father awake when he makes it to the backroom of the super secret hideout (Tommy knows it has a name, but it’s much cooler this way). “I fixed the device. It’s time for Lucy and I to go home.”

“Oh.” Oliver says softly. “That was quick.”

Tommy nods, leaning against the door frame. “Yeah. I’ve gotta be honest, I’m so grateful that I’m never gonna have to deal with a 2012 computer system again. That was torture.”

They’re both silent for a minute as Oliver pulls his shoes on and Tommy sighs inwardly. Now that he knows they can get home, there’s one more thing that he feels inclined to say. “So, listen. I know I was kind of stingy about you asking questions and us not messing up the timeline too much but… there’s this _thing_ about time travel. It’s tricky. Certain events are fixed which means if you mess with them, all hell breaks loose. But, then there’s others where if you tweak them a little bit, it doesn’t really matter in the long run, but it might make things a little easier.” He starts, walking over to sit beside his dad.

“I’m gonna tell you something, Dad. And I need you to listen.” Oliver stops what he’s doing and turns to look at his son, giving him his full attention. “Not telling Uncle Tommy about who you are is easily one of the worst decisions you’ve ever made, and if Future-You could take it back, he would. In a heartbeat. It takes a long time to walk back that mistake. So, if I were to give you any advice for the next almost-twenty years without me… I’m telling you not to wait. There won’t be a right moment and the sooner you tell him, the easier it’ll be for him to come to terms with it and the two of you can get straight into being the brothers I know you will be.”

Oliver’s silent for a minute, frowning. He seems to be genuinely contemplating what his son has told him. There’s a thought he pushes to the back of his mind; one that connects the dots between his son and best friend being named the same thing and everything has just revealed about their relationship, regrets Oliver doesn’t think he would have that far into the future… unless. “Why are you telling me this, Tommy?”

His son smiles, a little crooked just like how Oliver’s father’s was. “Because of Father Time. He’s a relentless son of a bitch. Doesn’t slow down for anyone.” He laughs, before getting serious. “You’ve got some tough times ahead, Dad. It’ll be a lot easier to get through if you and Uncle Tommy are on the same page through it all.”

It’s not the answer Oliver hoped for, but he trusts that his son is just being careful about the delicate balance he has to preserve, so he just follows him back into the main area, where Lucy and John are going through the stack of cards on the table. “Oh, I totally would’ve won.” Lucy smirks, taking one card out of the deck and pushing it to the side.

“Bullshit.” Diggle laughs. “In twenty years, I’m gonna be the Go Fish King, Lucy Queen.”

“In your dreams, Uncle John.” She grins, looking over to the other two members of the family. “We ready?”

“Think so.” Tommy nods as Lucy makes her way over to them pulling the both of them into a hug. It’s a stiff and weird hug, and the siblings mumbling “Bye, Dad.” in sync makes it even weirder, but it’s over before Oliver can even start to enjoy it and then they’re standing a few feet away, hands intertwined tightly, the device in Tommy’s right hand.

“See you in a minute.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: 2013 & godmother Sara!
> 
> thanks for reading!!
> 
> leave a comment if you liked it :)


	3. Tommy Threatens a Time Travelling Serial Killer and Oliver's Having a Terrible Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the kids show up in 2013, in the height of the Slade era and realize that they're gonna be here a while. 1) because William's Awful Time Travel Thingy is even more broken than the first time and 2) they may have made a teeny tiny little mistake. oops.

Tommy doesn’t know what he expected when he closed his eyes and pressed the button on the back of the device. He kinda thought they wouldn’t get as jostled around as they did the first time. It’s a similar feeling; like he’s falling a long way down but he can’t open his eyes to see if he actually is because it’s so bright. He lands on his right arm and can’t stop himself from letting out a whelp as he rolls, opening his eyes and immediately looking for his sister, who he finds a foot away from him, on her back, hands covering her eyes.

He hears footsteps before he sees who they belong to; feels familiar hands on his face, trying to help him up. When his vision focuses enough, he sees his father’s worried eyes peering down at him, though there’s a slight smile on his face - the kind that only people that know him can tell is a smile, considering it’s more of just a look and a slight tug at the corner of his mouth. He hears more footsteps but doesn’t even bother checking who they are or answering the flurry of concerned questions coming from his father’s mouth, he only looks over at Lucy, who’s being rolled over by Uncle John. She notices her brother’s eyes on her and scoffs, tugging at the sweater she’d borrowed. 

“I’m fine. What the hell did you do, dumbass?”

“Me?” He snaps, confused.

“Yeah, _you_.” She replies. “You’re the one who pressed the button. Why couldn’t we land on our feet?”

Before they can bicker any further, Tommy actually glances around, taking in their surroundings and for the first time, realizing that his dad and his uncle look eerily similar to the version of them that they’d just visited, not the versions they grew up with. Felicity, Tommy and Laurel - the last of which literally forces him to take a breath - are standing in a half circle around them in the middle of the foundry, Laurel’s the only one who looks to be utterly confused.

“Uh, Dig? Did your godtwins just _teleport_ here?” His Uncle Tommy remarks, arms crossed over his torso with a friendly gaze directed towards the kids. Tommy doesn’t want to sound naive or anything, but he feels like he really connected with his uncle in 2012, even for the short time they hung out while setting up Verdant. They’ve always been really similar, not just because of their shared name, and Tommy had a feeling his older counterpart would take a liking to him, even without knowing they’re family. 

Lucy moans a little as she twists her back, John still kneeling next to her with an arm hovering around her protectively. “I don’t think we’re back home, Tommy.”

Her brother brings his hand up to his head, rubbing at it as he leans slightly into his father’s shoulder, trying to dull the banging. “No shit, Sherlock. Is it just me or did it hurt _more_ this time?”

He watches his dad’s eyes flit between the two of them, eyebrows knit together in that worried way of his. “Are you guys okay?”

Lucy makes grabby hands at Uncle John, signaling for him to help her up as she reassures the both of them. “Don’t worry. This happened last time, too. You guys just weren’t here to see it.”

Oliver keeps steady hands on his son, face tight in a grimace as he tries to help him up. “Can you stand? Yeah?”

Tommy nods, letting his father lift him as John does the same with Lucy, who starts cracking her neck, making both Tommy’s cringe and look away. “What happened? Why did you come back?” John asks, as Tommy looks around for the device. He finds it under the computer desk and inspects it, sighing as he notices a few more broken parts. 

“We never made it home. Our last visit was ten seconds ago.” Lucy answers, receiving matching frowns from her father and uncle as the rest of the team just sort of stand there silently, unsure of what’s going on, but clearly trusting that Oliver or Dig will explain eventually.

“And to make matters worse,” Tommy holds up the broken device so that everyone can see it, “This is broken again.”

“You’re kidding.” Lucy frowns, quickly making her way over to him and analyzing the device herself. Oliver and Dig exchange a few worried words before a loud voice booms through the foundry.

“Woah. Were we supposed to get more food?” Lucy looks up to see her Uncle Roy followed by her Aunt Sara, each of them with bags of food in their hands. 

“Sara!” She can’t help herself from saying, just as her brother says, “Roy!”

The pair look at the two of them a little bewildered and their dad holds his hands up as if to say, _wait, what?_ “You guys know them?”

His son stutters a little bit, shaking his head. “Um, hello? What did we say about questions?”

“Not to ask any.” Diggle deadpans as his nephew points at him, with a look of pride on his face.

Lucy shakes her head, stepping closer to them, speaking quietly. “Hold on. What year is it?”

“It’s 2013.” Oliver crosses his arms, looking a little more relaxed than when they first got there, though it sort of warms Tommy’s heart to see the small little glances his parents have exchanged. They’re so obvious about it that he wonders if they’re in love yet. “You guys were here a year ago.”

What Tommy doesn’t expect is the hard punch he receives in his side from Lucy. “What the hell did you do?”

He brings his hand up to rub where she hit him and winces. “Hey! I don’t know how to work that thing. I did the best I could.”

“I’m not talking about bringing us here! I’m talking about whatever you must’ve done the last time we were here. Look around the room. Is something different to you?” She glares directly at him and it takes a second before his eyes widen in realization and he starts making moves to defend himself.

“Okay, can you relax? I know what I’m doing!”

Lucy points straight to their Uncle Tommy. “He’s early!”

“I know! We’re still here, aren’t we? All I did was fix a mistake and make things easier for everyone.” Tommy argues back.

“Good luck telling our godmother that!” Both siblings can’t help but glance over at said godmother, Sara, who’s just staring at the scene with a look of annoyance; like she wants to be anywhere else. 

“Everybody quiet!” The whole group spins around to see where Felicity’s stepped out of place and into the middle of the floor, a focused look on her face. “Now, I have been uncharacteristically silent for the majority of this conversation and I’m going to put that down to me believing I’d just found out teleportation was real. But what we’re _not_ gonna do is start saying things that sound a hell of a lot like time travel and not clarify if what we’re talking about is real actual time travel. Is it real? Are you guys from the past?”

Both John and Oliver answer at the same time, matching smiles pulling on their lips at Felicity’s geeky babble. “Future.”

Laurel lets out a surprised, crazy-sounding laugh. “Huh. This year can’t be real. What has happened to the world?”

Felicity, despite her obvious need to ask a million questions, collects herself and asks, “I thought you guys were from the past? I met you last year.”

“Well, technically we just came from the past but we haven’t actually been born yet.” Lucy replies, resisting the urge to laugh at the gears that are probably turning in her mother’s head.

“Okay, hold on.” Uncle Tommy says. “What did you mean before, when you said I’m early?”

His nephew rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. Lucy’s overreacting. In our timeline, you and Dad have a fight that takes you quite a while to come back from. I just… sped things along a little bit.”

Uncle Tommy blinks twice and then mutters, “Dad?”

“You’re an idiot.” Lucy says to her brother and for once, he actually believes her, letting his eyes slip shut in regret. He opens his eyes to see his mother’s intense gaze fixated on his father, as if she already knows Tommy was talking about him. He wonders if she sees any of his father in him. He watches their silent exchange for a moment before Oliver clears his throat, looking at the whole team.

“Lucy and Tommy are my kids from the future.” Oliver says, as confidently as he can muster. Felicity’s eyes are immediately trained on the floor while Laurel sucks the inside of her cheek, clearly lost in thought. 

“Please, tell me I’m not your mom.” Sara says, sparking a laugh out of both kids, Lucy shaking her head. 

Laurel tilts her head to the side, a smile forming on her face. “Wait, then who is? Do we know her already?”

“Look, all we can say is that it’s not a Lance sister. That’s all you get. No more hints.” Lucy replies, looking to her dad, trying to signal to him to save her. To his credit, he understands a signal they haven’t even created yet so, good for him.

“Guys, listen. The important thing here is that until we can get the kids back to their time, we don’t ask them any questions about the future. We don’t want to accidentally change something that could end up changing the fact that they were even born at all.” He announces, as Diggle nods along to get the point across.

Lucy chimes in, clasping her hands together in front of her with a grin on her face. “The good news is you’ll know if you’ve royally screwed up because the two of us will fade away to dust right before your eyes. Never to have existed.” The look she gets from her father tells her she’s not helping so she claps her hands and loops her arm with Diggle’s. “So, when are we in 2013? Catch me up, timeline-wise. Oh! Have you guys been to Russia yet?”

John nods and she grins widely, bumping shoulders with him and wiggling her eyebrows. “How’s Lyla?”

He smiles back, pleasantly surprised. “You know Lyla?”

“Maybe…” She says with a smirk on her face.

Laurel clears her throat and grabs her bag from off the floor. “Well, I should get going, considering I still have a day job. Um, I guess I’ll see you guys later?” She says, slowly backing up towards the stairs and Roy announces that he promised to go see Thea, following her.

“Hey!” Oliver shouts at him. “Do not tell Thea any of this.” Roy only mock salutes as Tommy calls out, “Bye Aunt Laurel, bye Roy!” and Laurel gives an awkward wave.

The second they’re gone, Uncle Tommy is swinging an arm around his best friend’s shoulders and giving him this adorable little look. “You named your kid after me, Ollie.”

Oliver chuckles, prying Tommy’s hands off of him. “Yeah, don’t get all sentimental about it. I haven’t _yet_.”

“I love you too!” Tommy says sarcastically before turning to his nephew, looking him over. “You know, I know we’re not blood-related, but we totally look alike!”

The young Queen just laughs, muttering, “Heard that before.” before walking over to Felicity who, like earlier, has been uncharacteristically quiet, just leaning against her computer desk. Tommy plops down beside her, making sure not to mess up any of her layout (he knows from experience that’s one of the few things that makes his mother irrationally angry) and gives her a friendly smile. Based off of the way he’s been watching his parents interact since they got here, Tommy’s deduced that his mom at least has some sort of romantic feelings for his dad, so it’s probably a bit of a shellshock to find out he has kids in the future and not know if she’s a part of that future or not. “So, I can’t say much about time travel, but I know you must have a million questions about it so how about you rapid fire them and I’ll do my best to answer what I can whilst _mostly_ obeying the laws of time travel. Yes?”

The way his mother’s face lights up gives him his answer.

***

They don’t spend long discussing the ins and outs of how the Queen children ended up stumbling their way into the past for too long, mostly because Tommy’s too nervous to waste any time. Felicity could’ve gone on for hours, but her son’s brain is swirling with ‘what-ifs’ and the very real possibility that they might be stuck in this year for a lot longer than last time. When they finish their conversation and move into the backroom (that finally has couches!), Lucy’s sprawled out on the floor, legs in the air behind her, surrounded by Uncle Tommy, Uncle John, Aunt Sara and their dad.

“Okay, me _not_ telling you about Lyla the last time I was here is the reason you and Lyla get to be together now, so you’re welcome, Uncle John.” Lucy’s saying as they walk in, Tommy taking a seat on the arm of the couch next to John, Felicity going to sit between Tommy and Sara.

Diggle nudges him in the arm, frowning. “How come _you_ never told me about Lyla?”

Tommy shakes his head, smacking his lips together. “I honestly just forgot you two _weren’t_ together. Otherwise, I probably would’ve told you by accident.”

“Which you’ve _really_ gotta stop doing, by the way.” Lucy chimes in, looking at him pointedly. So, yeah. Accidentally revealing to all of Team Arrow that Oliver is their dad was a major screw up on his part, but it’s taken everything in him to stop himself from referring to Felicity as ‘Mom’ so he’s doing better than Lucy’s giving him credit for.

“I know. That’s why we need to come up with a plan, ASAP.” He pulls the device out of his pocket. “This is even more broken than the last time and I have no idea where to even start with it, so it looks like we’re gonna be here a while.”

Lucy moves to sit upright on the floor, leaning her head up against the side of the sofa. “What do you mean? Can’t you and Felicity figure it out, like last time?”

Tommy shakes his head. “This is future-tech. I don’t think even _I’m_ smart enough to fix it and I’m from the time it was created.”

“Well, don’t sell yourself short. You’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe eventually. But, we don’t have that kind of time, do we? Will used Gideon from the beginning. She has everything. All his plans, even the scrapped ones.”

Lucy thinks for a second before turning to the rest of the group, asking, “Have you guys met someone named Barry Allen, by any chance?”

Diggle’s eyebrows knit together. “The scientist?”

“He’s a CSI, actually.” Felicity clarifies, though quickly realizes that wasn’t the question and turns to the kids. “Yes, we have met him but he’s uh… currently unavailable. He was struck by lightning a few weeks ago and he’s in a coma.”

The twins share a knowing look and Tommy huffs in annoyance, crossing his arms. “So, we’ve got _at least_ another year and a half before we can get to Gideon, unless we want You-Know-Who to drop-kick us out of existence.”

“Oh, do we have a Voldemort?” Felicity asks excitedly, just as Lucy drops her head into her hands, whining out something along the lines of ‘it’s complicated’.

“Am I gonna have to get a job?” Lucy continues, face twisted in disgust at the thought of working for minimum wage in a time she knows next to nothing about unless she were to be quizzed on vigilantism or Taylor Swift albums.

Tommy snorts, crossing his arms over his chest. “Considering neither of us have social security numbers or even a home address, I’d say good luck with that.”

Lucy narrows her eyes at him, annoyed that they’ve barely gotten anywhere with this conversation. “Well, it’s not like sleeping in a super-secret-vigilante-lair for an extended amount of time is our best option, either. What do you suggest?”

“Unfortunately, I think it’s our only option right now. Unless you wanna room with Grandma?” He laughs at the face Lucy makes and continues. “We just gotta make sure we know our history and we’re not gonna be stepping on any butterflies.”

“Well, since I am the only one of us that actually pays attention when our parents talk, I will make us a timeline of events to avoid getting involved in and therefore enabling us to make ourselves scarce so we don’t accidentally pull a Flashpoint.” She turns to the rest of the group then, pointing a menacing finger at each of them. “Which none of you will be allowed to look at, by the way.”

Uncle Tommy raises his eyebrows, whining, “Well, that’s no fun.”, only for Oliver to hit him in the chest with a pillow, sparking a laugh out of the kids.

“What’s a Flashpoint?” Sara speaks for the first time and Tommy drops his head into his hands at the question, letting his sister answer that one.

“It’s one of the biggest historical time-travelling mistakes that we know of. This guy went back in time to stop someone he loved from dying and then when he returned to his own time, he realized that he pretty much almost ruined the lives of every single person around him. I mean, he made it so that his friend’s brother had died, his friend just straight up never had a mother which wasn’t the case in the original timeline, he changed the gender of one of his friend’s kids, he fractured relationships… it was a whole thing.”

“Wait a minute?” John starts, a worried expression on his face. “Are you guys saying it’s possible that you could accidentally kill _other_ people, not just yourselves?”

Tommy nods. “Technically, we could but we’ve been taught pretty well on how not to let accidental time travelling adventures ruin the lives of other people. When Flashpoint was done, obviously no one had ever told him that he could affect literally everything.”

Lucy rises to her feet, stretching a little bit before clapping her hands together, ready to get started. “Okay, I am going to make a dent in this timeline-map. Please, all of you make sure you don’t accidentally read anything that’s going to be on it. Just keep your distance from me, alright?”

“I’m going to go Google just about everything this time period has learned about quantum physics and hope that I retain at least some of it.” Tommy adds, also getting up from his spot on the arm of the sofa and turning to Oliver, thinking about what he’ll need, research-wise. Definitely, a trip to the bookstore and the library. He’s assuming he won’t be able to find everything online, given the time period. “Dad, could you drive me to a few places? I’m gonna need a couple notebooks to write this down and then see if I can find a few college-level textbooks.” 

Lucy sticks her head back in the door, a pleading smile on her face. “Oh, can you get me like, a large sketchpad? It’ll be better for the map.”

Oliver nods curtly, looking to John. “Can I borrow your car? I only brought my bike.”

Diggle chuckles, winking at Lucy. “Only ‘cause it’s my niece asking.”  
  


Lucy brings both her hands up under her chin, trying to look like a cute little kid and squeals out a little “Thank you!” before going back out to the main area, grabbing a pen and a piece of scrap paper to start a list.

As they’re exiting the front doors of Verdant, Tommy nudges his dad in the side, trying to take a page out of his sister’s book and put on his best pleading face, as he asks if he can drive. Oliver just scoffs, making his way to the driver’s side and Tommy knows he’s not getting the chance to drive anytime soon. “You don’t have a license that’s valid in 2013 and I really don’t feel like getting arrested, so no.”

Tommy shrugs, getting into the passenger seat. “Worth a shot.”

`It’s four days before Lucy’s finished her timeline map and sleeping in the backroom of the foundry isn’t as bad as either of them expected. Luckily, one of the sofas in there is a pull-out, big enough for the both of them to fit on. They spend most of their time outside of the foundry though, too afraid to mess up their dad’s ‘work’ life enough that it gets someone killed. They’re lucky Uncle Tommy’s more than happy to hang out with them at the bar when he’s setting up and they spend some time at his apartment with Aunt Laurel, using this chance to get to know her before she’s gone forever. It’s difficult, though. The more they fall in love with her, the harder it is to not just wrap her up like a Christmakkuh present and take her home to their parents, therefore erasing her death. Uncle Roy is probably the easiest to hang around, as he’s still a teenager right now and totally speaks their language, not treating them like the niece or nephew that they are - which he obviously can’t know because of the millions of breakups he’ll go through with their Aunt Thea before he finally proposes to her after Crisis. Tommy remembers asking his dad once if that was one of the changes that he’d made when creating the new universe and all he’d said was something super cryptic along the lines of ‘whatever makes my sister happy’.

So Tommy took that as a yes.

They’ve taken to sleeping in as much as they can, considering a lot of the work Tommy’s doing on the W.A.T.T.T (William’s Awful Time Travelling Thingy) involves waiting and the more he works out his brain, the less he can think straight. Lucy doesn’t have a lot to do either besides bugging their family members so she’s relishing in the fact that she doesn’t have to get up for school and lounging in pajamas for most of the time. 

It’s on one of the days they’re sleeping in that Tommy’s woken up by a shout and a couple of loud pops. He jolts out of bed, side stepping towards the door, pausing a minute before opening it quickly, lucky that his sister isn’t in the line of sight. He sees his parents crouching underneath the stairs, his dad covering Felicity with his whole body (if it were any other time, Tommy would make some comment like, _some things never change_ ) as Diggle and Sara run in opposite directions, narrowly avoiding bullets. He can’t see whoever’s shooting, hidden behind a rack of spears, but he watches his dad yell at John to stop running. Tommy can’t help it, a familiar instinct ripping loose as he shouts out, “Dad!” in fear. It’s only then that Oliver notices him, his eyes widening in alarm with that protective instinct that Tommy’s noticed his Dad has for them, even in a time where he doesn’t know them very well. 

Oliver waves his arm at him as if to push him back into the room from afar and yells, “Get back inside! Don’t come out!” In doing so, the unnamed shooter notices there are others here and turns the corner, revealing himself to Tommy, who just swears under his breath, slams the door shut and dives, telling his sister to drop. Five bullets go through the door until he hears a few grunts and it’s safe to assume Slade is in hand-to-hand combat with a member of the team. 

Lucy crawls sneakily to the other side of the room and then stands up beside him, both of their backs against the far wall where Slade won’t be able to shoot through and get them. “I fucked up.” Tommy admits, breathing heavily. “That’s Slade out there and I just referred to Dad as ‘dad’.”

The look on Lucy’s face is enough to tell him how bad it is and he wills himself to think back to what he might know about the Slade problem circa 2013. He remembers being ten years old and having to deal with Lucy asking every single member of their family to recount their parents’ love story (back when she was convinced they were characters in the kids movies she watched about falling in love with princes or whatever). All of them had different perspectives but he remembers his Uncle John saying that a big bad guy called Slade had a knack for going after the people their dad loved the most, so they pretended that Felicity was the person Oliver loved most even _before_ they were together. Uncle John said that was the moment when he became certain they’d be married one day, though Oliver had always said he was just ‘acting’. Cute love story aside, the consequences of Slade knowing Oliver has kids becomes painfully clear. 

“Lucy, if Slade thinks Dad loves us instead of Felicity or Laurel, he’ll take us instead. The entire timeline’s fucked. I mean, John said that was one of the defining moments of Mom and Dad’s relationship.”

“Yeah, I remember, but we’ve got bigger problems.” Lucy replies, whispering frantically. “They don’t win this fight. Slade beats the schrap out of them and then takes something, I think.”

“We can’t let him leave or the timeline’s blown to hell!”

Lucy shrugs her shoulders, face twisted in a grimace. “How do you suggest we stop him? He’s got _Mirakuru_ in his system. He’s already twice as strong as Dad and John.”

Tommy looks around the room quickly, looking to see if an answer will jump out at him as his eyes fall on the closet, a lightbulb going off in his head. “They keep the medical stuff in here.” He says and moves towards it, flinging the doors open and rummaging through drawers and first aid kits. He pulls out a bottle of liquid benzodiazepine and a few syringes. “How many do you think it’ll take to knock him out?”

“You take two, I’ll take two.” Lucy responds as they fill up syringes and put the bottle back, quickly making their way to the door, counting together silently before they swing it open, Lucy ducking to the side as Tommy tries to get Slade’s attention off of currently fighting Oliver. He’s lucky the years of growing up alongside his sister has allowed for the two of them to be able to speak without words, even though they’re not technically twins. He hears his dad yelling at him as he leaps behind a table, probably to get back in the room, but there’s not much he can do about it. Slade’s so busy fighting Oliver and keeping one eye on Tommy to make sure he doesn’t pull anything that he doesn’t notice Lucy jump on his back, pulling off his helmet just until there’s exposed skin and sticking the needle in his neck, which inserts the anesthetic into his bloodstream. It’s not enough to knock him out but he does get woozy, stumbling on his feet, making Lucy drop the other syringe to the floor, smashing it. Tommy gets up from his spot, shouts on his dad and throws him one of his syringes, Oliver catching it with ease and sticking that one into Slade’s neck as Lucy backbends off of his shoulders. 

Slade mumbles a few incoherent words that seem to be laced with venom and then he’s out like a light, slumped on the floor like a little kid with a cold. Tommy goes into action immediately, telling Oliver to find something to tie him up as he looks around himself, Felicity pulling the breaker to switch on the lights. Lucy helps Sara and Diggle up before helping with the search, sighing internally when her father starts asking disappointed-sounding questions. “What the hell were you guys thinking? I told you to stay in the back room. You could’ve gotten killed.”

Tommy hands one of the chains he found to Lucy and starts tying up Slade’s feet as she works on a loop that will incapacitate him and also attach him to three punching bags that he’ll have to lift if he wants to get away. Tommy huffs, shaking his head at his dad’s pointless lecture. “You know, one of these days, you’re really gonna have to start trusting that we know what we’re doing.”

Lucy can sense her brother getting annoyed very quickly and takes over from there, doing her best to explain calmly without letting her worry about how they’ll get out of this mess take over. Tommy’s always been better at compartmentalizing and focusing on one task than she is. “Look, the timeline was already screwed. Slade knowing we exist puts everyone in here in danger. It means we now have no idea the outcome of your fight with him. Him killing you is a very real possibility and that means killing us, too. You all could be as good as dead now, because of this change.”

“Well, how do you plan on fixing that?” Felicity walks over, looking a little shaken as she runs a hand over her ponytail. “I don’t think he’ll be very cooperative when he wakes up.”

“I need a flasher.” Tommy says, finishing up the last of the chains attached to the punching bags John brought over.

“Those don’t exist yet.” Lucy frowns.

“No, but I know someone who can make one.” Tommy responds and braces himself for his sister’s reaction which is, as expected, very disapproving.

“You are not seriously thinking about going to Thawne.” Lucy bites harshly, standing up and crossing her arms in a way that says she won’t stand for it.

Tommy stands too, mirroring her. “We don’t have another choice. Everything must happen the way it did originally and we can’t take back what just happened unless we time travel or erase his memories. Considering the W.A.T.T.T’s all out of whack, memory erasure is our best option.”

“What makes you think he won’t just kill you the second you walk in the door?” Lucy snaps, their conversation turning into a full-blown argument now, with everyone gathering around them.

“Because I have leverage. I’m a walking time-bomb. I can wreck his entire timeline in seconds flat.” Tommy sounds confident, but he’s only projecting that. He knows it’s a terrible plan, but an even worse one is doing nothing and letting Slade potentially fuck up the future.

Felicity raises her hands, stopping Lucy from responding and asks, “Hold on. Who are we talking about?”

“Harrison Wells.”

“Eobard Thawne.” The twins opposite answers only further confuse the rest of the group and Lucy tries to clarify. “Eobard Thawne is a time criminal.”

“Right…” Diggle looks at her as if that wasn’t helpful. “And what the hell is that?”

Lucy huffs as Tommy pulls on his jacket and ruffles through some drawers to look for comms, fully intent on going, even if his sister doesn’t agree. Lucy responds to Diggle in her _i’m-going-to-be-a-lawyer_ technical tone. “A time criminal is someone who travels through time and purposefully fucks things up. A while from now, Barry Allen will wake up from his coma with powers of super speed. The thing is, Thawne - being from the future - idolized Barry. He was the Flash, Central City’s superhero. So, he recreated the explosion that gave Barry his powers but long story short, got involved with negative tachyons instead of positive ones and so he became the Reverse of everything Barry was. So, they get in a battle one day and Thawne travels back in time to kill Barry’s mom. In doing so, something happened to his speed and so he got stuck here. He kills Harrison Wells and takes over his body because he realizes that the only way to get home is to make Barry the Flash again, only like five years earlier.”

“Wait, so… Harrison Well isn’t _actually_ Harrison Wells. He’s a time travelling murderer living in his body who tried to create Barry into a superhero.” Felicity says slowly, as if the words sound crazy on her lips.

“Don’t worry.” Tommy reassures. “None of you will remember this once I get the flasher. I’m going to do this whether any of you agree or not so it’d just be easier if you helped me.”

Lucy looks like she thinks on it for a second and then sighs, exasperated. “It’ll take you an hour and a half to get to Central by train. That’s time we don’t have.”

“I can make it in twenty-five if I take Dad’s bike.” Tommy replies, looking to his father who doesn’t seem too pleased about any of this, but he agrees.

“Thawne’s gonna ask you questions about the future, to see if he succeeds.” Lucy warns.

“So, I’ll lie. I’ll tell him he won. Barry’s dead.”

Lucy shakes her head in annoyance, her brain working at twice it’s normal speed in order to protect her brother from anything Thawne might pull. “He’ll see right through you.”

“So, give me a crash course. Everything I can’t mention.”

She tries to prepare him as much as she can, but they only have so little time. The basics involve most of what the Earth-1 timeline was before everything was changed. Tommy just has to act pretty clueless about the whole thing and pretend his dad is dead, as well as Barry. He switches on his comms and finishes off the ties on his boots and then Lucy’s grabbing his arm, looking in his eyes so he knows she’s serious. “If you’re not back in three hours, I’m coming after you.”

He grins, a little lopsided. “Wouldn’t expect any less.” He says, looking to the rest of the group. “If Slade wakes up, knock him out again until I return. Felicity, you’ll follow me on the security cameras?”

She nods curtly, plopping down in her chair. “I’ll cover your tracks.”

“Dad, report your bike stolen and make sure no one else shows up here. Not even Roy or Laurel. And don’t clean any of this up, it’s gotta be the exact same.” Oliver looks a little confused, but seems to have taken Tommy’s earlier advice about trusting him and nods. “See you in three hours.”

He flies up the stairs and Felicity pulls up the traffic cams that cover the street Verdant is on, erasing the footage after Tommy’s pulled out of the parking lot. They follow him on the traffic cameras throughout the streets of Starling, running through red lights and going way too fast for Oliver’s liking. Lucy notices the distress on her father’s face and places her head on his forearm. “You remember those disagreements I told you that you and Tommy have about him being a reckless teenager who’s all too much like you? He races. That’s one of them. But you don’t have to worry about him on the road. He always wins.”

Truthfully, it doesn’t do much to ease Oliver’s nerves. He just keeps his eyes trained on the screen. Eventually, the cops start chasing Tommy and Lucy taps into the comms, telling him to lose them for a quick second. She tells Felicity to hack into the police radios and then fakes a different voice than her own and says the suspect was spotted heading towards an entirely different street than Tommy’s headed to.

When he makes it to Star Labs, it’s fairly easy to get inside. There’s no security and he assumes it’ll just be Caitlin, Cisco and an unconscious Uncle Barry in there with Thawne. He finds them in the Cortex, Thawne at the computers, Cisco fiddling with some device and Caitlin checking over Barry’s monitors. “Dr. Wells? Hi, I’m Tommy Queen. I was wondering if I could have a word with you, Sir?”

At the name, Tommy sees a slight look of recognition in the man’s eyes and he says something about Tommy being an ‘old friend’ to Caitlin and Cisco and then waves his hand for the young Queen to follow him, wheeling out of the room. They get to the secret passage and Thawne seems to want to go past it, but Tommy stops, stating, “This room will do fine, I think.”

Thawne gives him an entirely fake smile and presses his hand to the wall, opening it before the two step inside. The door shuts behind them and Tommy moves quickly to get as far away from the evil speedster as possible, speaking as calmly as he can muster. “Before you drive your vibrating hand through my chest, you should know that I’m not here to ruin your plans.”

Thawne gets up from his chair and though Tommy knows he can walk, it’s still a creepy sight. “So, what is a Queen child doing in a time he doesn’t belong. You _are_ the son of Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak, yes?”

“It wasn’t intentional. I have no business being here. I’ll be going back soon. But I can’t leave until I fix a mistake I’ve made.” Tommy replies, leaning against the wall in an attempt to appear non-hostile. Thawne doesn’t seem intent on killing him so far and is actually just curious about why he’s here. 

“And I suppose you need my help to fix your mess. Why would I help you?”

Tommy shrugs as if it’s an easy answer, one that Eobard should’ve guessed. “I’m from the future. You’re stuck here. I know you have a very particular plan for how the next few years will go. Ask me anything.”

Thawne smirks and Tommy can tell that won’t be enough, the look on his face indicating he has no interest in keeping Tommy alive either. “Knowing the future only ruins it. You have nothing to offer me.”

“Well, speaking of ruining things…” Tommy smiles confidently, making sure that the villain in front of him knows he has the upper hand now. “I’ve already told all of Team Arrow exactly what you’ve done _and_ what you plan on doing. My mother’s very fond of Barry, you know. There’s a comm in my ear. If you kill me, your whole timeline’s blown to hell. Unless, you make me a flasher.”

Thawne frowns, glaring at the boy, looking skeptical of Tommy’s threat. “How do I know you won’t do it anyway?”

“I’ve got bigger problems in my future than you trying to get back to yours. Besides, I understand the consequences of time travel. Exposing you may save Barry’s life, it might save my dad’s, but there’s no telling what other lives it’ll ruin. That’s why I’m trying to fix what I broke. I’ll only do what I have to.” He makes sure to give Thawne the little tidbit of a lie that Oliver and Barry are both dead, so he can envision a future where his plan has worked.

Thawne thinks on it for a second, still looking untrusting of the young Queen, but eventually, he raises his hand and reveals the workshop part of the room behind Gideon and says, “You’re a little asshole. You know that, kid?”

“So, I’ve been told.”

When the flasher’s done, Thawne makes some threatening comment about never wanting to see him again and Tommy’s out of there as fast as possible, lucky he doesn’t run into Caitlin or Cisco. The less people that see him in the past, the better. He can’t go as fast on the bike as he did on the way here, because he doesn’t want to be followed to the foundry, but he still makes it back in less than an hour, running down the stairs, glad to see nothing about the room has changed and Slade is still passed out on the floor, hands tied up in chains.

Lucy’s sitting on Felicity’s desk, John leaning against another one with Oliver and Sara chatting quietly amongst themselves across from him. Both his dad and his sister visibly relax when they see him and Lucy gives him a hard, disapproving stare. “You were unbelievably ballsy in there.”

He’s reminded that he’d kept his comms on during the conversation with Thawne and resists the urge to look guilty for her sake. He’s just more of a risk-taker than her. He’s not ashamed to admit he likes the thrill and adrenaline of danger; he gets it from his dad. Despite all of their arguing, it’s one thing he’s able to understand about his father. Tommy just takes off his jacket and smiles at her. “Oh, _please_. I had it under control.”

His sister’s face twists into disbelief and annoyance, looking at him as if he’s psychotic. “You were _threatening_ a _serial killer_ . When we get back to our time, Dad’s gonna _kill_ you.”

“I’m thinking about killing him right now, actually.” Oliver mumbles under his breath, earning a small smile from both of his kids at how much he sounds like the future version of himself.

“Okay,” Tommy chuckles, holding up the device. “The good news is I got the flasher. Now, we should all just get into position and wait for him to wake up.”

Tommy quickly teaches his dad how to use it as Felicity gets back under the stairs and Diggle and Sara lie down on the ground where they were thrown earlier, the Queen kids locking themselves in the backroom. The group talks quietly amongst themselves for an hour or so before Slade starts to shift in place. The second his eyes open, Oliver lifts the flasher to his head and presses the button, erasing all Slade’s memories of Tommy and Lucy ever being there as Oliver pockets the device, getting ready to look like he’s in the midst of combat with Slade. He lets Slade overpower him easily and watches him from the ground as Slade steals the skeleton key and leaves, muttering some last words about training Oliver, acting like nothing had ever happened. 

When Oliver’s sure he’s gone he gets up, along with Sara, Diggle and Felicity and calls on the kids, who come out of the backroom slowly, making sure it’s all clear. “It’s okay, he’s gone.” Their dad reassures. “Did it work?”

“Did he take something?” Lucy asks, looking around. 

“The skeleton key. I saw him take it.” Sara replies, pointing to wear it was, clearly confused about why he’d want it.

Lucy nods. “Then it worked.”

“Now, it’s your turn.” Tommy says, fiddling with the flasher and setting up the wait times they’ll need. 

Felicity frowns, confused. “Wait, what? Our turns?”

Tommy nods, knowing they’d already discussed this before he left for Central City. “Yeah, I told you. You guys heard us talking about Thawne and who he is. Not that long from now, you’re all going to become like family with Barry. There’s no way you won’t be able to interfere.You can’t know anything about it.”

Tommy can understand why the prospect of getting their minds wiped would be daunting, even if it makes sense for it to happen. They don’t seem to protest though. Lucy takes a deep breath, cracking her knuckles. “Okay. Set a wait time for like, five minutes and we’ll just say we were out for food or something.”

Tommy nods, telling them to get back into the positions they were in as he shuts the breaker off for the lights. Lucy goes upstairs and stays in Verdant while her brother walks around one by one and flashes each of them, none of them waking up until five minutes later, when Tommy’s upstairs with his sister, waiting for the right time to act like they’d just shown up. Oliver wakes up first, rolling over onto his side, surprised that he’s not in as much pain as he should be. Felicity gets up and turns the breaker on, Diggle and Sara following soon, Sara asking, “Everyone okay?”

“The kids!” Oliver panics, remembering leaving them in the backroom sleeping when he left earlier that day. He rushes to their room, shoving the door open and his panic growing even worse when they’re not in bed. “They’re not here!”

He runs back into the main area and Felicity asks if he thinks Slade took them, only to be shot down by Sara. “No way. If he did, he’d rub it in our faces.”

“We’ve really gotta get those kids cell phones.” Diggle adds.

“I’ll search traffic cams.” Felicity says, already getting to work on her computer just as they hear boots clanking on the foundry stairs, said children walking down them, not a care in the world.

“Oh my god.” Oliver mumbles, making quick strides to get over to them. They smile at him and the second they’re on the same level, Oliver’s pulling the both of them into a hug. They both wrap their arms around him, acting a little surprised, but they’re also a little touched, this being the first time they’ve received any sort of affection from this version of their dad. It’s nice, but it also seems super out of character for him. It’s been hard to imagine him growing into the man they grew up with - someone who never turns down a bear hug and who smothers them with kisses every time they get home from school, even though he sees them everyday.

“Hey.” Tommy says, smiling. “Slade pay you a visit?”

Oliver pulls away, but keeps his hands on each of their arms, eyebrows knitted together. “How did you know?”

“Timeline, remember? We had to make sure we wouldn’t be here.” Tommy responds cooly, the weird look that forms on his sister’s face not slipping past him, though their father doesn’t notice.

Oliver shakes his head, sighing deeply. “Tell me where you go next time, please? I’m going to get you guys phones, just in case.”

“Dad.” Lucy says softly, smiling slightly as she tries to calm him. “We’re fine.” She leans up and kisses his cheek before stepping away, deeper into the foundry as she asks the others how they are.

“Relax, old man.” Tommy claps him on the shoulder, following his sister and calling back to him as he points to his temple. “Future knowledge, remember?”

“This place is a wreck!” He continues, directing his next statement at Felicity. “Please tell me he didn’t touch the W.A.T.T.T.”

Felicity shakes her head. “Didn’t even see it.” Oliver seems to get his shit together and joins them by Felicity, Team Arrow starting to talk about Slade’s motives behind taking the skeleton key. 

“Well, we’re going to leave you to your vigilante-ing. Felicity, you’ll tell me when the W.A.T.T.T’s done scanning?” Tommy asks, smiling when his mother nods her head and says something like ‘absolutely’. “Thank you. We’ll be on the roof.”

He leads his sister out the back door and up the fire escape, the two of them settling down the outer wall of the roof, feet dangling off the edge. “It really is beautiful out here at night, huh?”

His sister only hums, not even looking at the sky, just staring at the building in front of them. Now, he _knows_ his sister has a thing for glistening stars in the nighttime, so he tries to pry something out of her, nudging her side. “What’s up with you? You got all weird earlier when I told Dad we knew Slade would attack.”

Lucy shakes her head, thinking for a minute. “I didn’t put it on the timeline. I should’ve, I just… I forgot. And now, Thawne knows you exist and I’m certain that’s gonna come back and bite us in the ass and… I should’ve put it on the timeline.”

Tommy wraps an arm around her shoulders, looking at her face, though she just stares ahead. “Hey, I’ve made a lot more mistakes than you have since we’ve been here. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“None of your mistakes have gotten us killed.” She retorts.

“And neither have yours.” He replies immediately. “What’s wrong, Luce? It can’t just be that.”

She blinks away a few tears, bringing a hand up to wipe under her eye. “It’s a lot of things. It’s Laurel and it’s Mom and Dad and… I just wanna go home.”

At the little break in her voice, Tommy pulls her in closer, leaning his head on top of hers. “I know. So do I.”

If he closes his eyes, he can picture the smell of his dad’s chilli and the click clacking of his mom’s fingers on a keyboard. Carter’s footsteps chasing him around and Lucas’ teenage-like complaints. Mia playing the drums on his shoulders and Will helping his dad in the kitchen, most likely going into way too much detail about his work day that would drive anyone but their dad up the wall. Mostly, he just _feels_ like he’s home. 

It doesn’t feel like that here, no matter how much he believes it should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did anyone notice the lil reused line from barry to thawne in the 100th episode of the Flash, except between tommy and thawne? i hope so.


End file.
